


A Hanukkah Carol

by Monsterunderkilt



Series: The Manse [39]
Category: Actor RPF, Celebrities - Fandom, RPF - Fandom, Real Person Fanfic - Fandom, Real Person Fiction
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monsterunderkilt/pseuds/Monsterunderkilt
Summary: On the first night of Hanukkah, a special visitation returns me to the past
Series: The Manse [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1209447
Kudos: 1





	A Hanukkah Carol

On the first night cold enough to silence the night’s wee critters and replace the tropical din with distant white noise carried in the denser air, I find myself deep under my bedcovers, seconds from nodding off. Ken spoons me warmly, arm draped over my middle, my hand covered by his on the pillow. It’s a blissful heat and stillness that promises a dead sleep.

I yawn, blinking my last blink, but a diaphanous, bioluminescent glow appears before me next to the bed. I blink some more until I focus on the benevolent apparition: the nonpareil Tilda, draped in a stunning lace gown stolen from Victorian times. She tilts her head ever so slightly, a Mona Lisa smile on her lips.

“Angels and ministers of grace defend us,” I whisper, otherwise unmoving. “Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d?”

She wrinkles her brow, then silently stares me down.

I bite my lower lip. “Do you wish that from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past that youth and observation copied there?”

Tilda rolls her eyes. “I thought we were done with Shakespeare for the year, woman.”

I shrug, causing Ken to stir a little. I freeze as he has a single snore, then settles again, squeezing me tighter against him. I lift my hand to jab a thumb at Ken. “He’s still around ain’t he?”

She purses her lips for a beat, then leans closer to me. “Follow me, my dear.”

“Are you the ghost of Christmas past?”

“Close, but no cigar,” she says, presenting her upturned palm.

I take her hand—so warm, so soft, like the inside of a leather glove lined with angora—and Ken magically rolls onto his other side, freeing me from his delightful hug so I can climb out of bed without disturbing him.

Tilda seems to float before me on roller skates made of aerogel as she leads me out the bedroom door to walk the mezzanine. At the top of the staircase, the warm half-dark of the foyer draped with white Christmas lights suddenly hits me with a pang of déjà vu. She turns to me, the edges of her light-as-a-feather skirt brushing my bare toes. “Do you hear it?” she asks with a wink.

I close my eyes and listen, at first only noticing the archaic echo of a peacock’s call somewhere in the jungle outside, but then music reaches my ears and my memory. When I open my eyes again, Tilda’s radiant white cheek is next to mine.

With a whisper softer than the flutter of a moth’s wing, she says “Keep this one in the book and volume of your brain.”

I hold her gaze as she steps back, reaching her hand out toward the stairs, waving me to a more removed ground. Slowly, I follow the sound down, hearing it come from the living room in December of 2008...

...I heard the haunting love tune no one who has ever watched _Doctor Zhivago_ could ever hope to forget. The ubiquitous “Lara's Theme” echoed through the house as I made my way toward the living room. When I made it to the hallway, I paused and watched from afar as Stephen propped Jr. on his hip and took him over to the menorah on the mantle. He started to light the shamash.

"You're the youngest one in the house, so it's your duty to light the candles," Stephen said to our son as he lit the other candles on the menorah. "There's this trick your mother taught me, so pay attention: add toward the left, light toward the right. Got it? Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either, but I'll be damned if you don't learn your job, son. Your mother will have me in a sling."

I covered my mouth to hold back a little giggle, and my face just morphed into a giant smile when I saw him reach into his pocket and pull out a slip of paper.

Stephen adjusted his glasses with his free hand as baby Stephen rubbed his eyes, then focussed on the paper his father was holding, concentrating on it as if he could read it.

"Alright, we've got the blessing here, so um-"

"Stephen!" Jon called out from the armchair, where he was totally reclined with a bowl of popcorn in his lap. He wore his all-gray drawstring sweatpants and William and Mary sweatshirt, as cozy as can be. "Please, man, we're trying to watch the movie here."

"Yeah, Stephen Jr. won't even be able to remember this," Stevezie added as he munched popcorn from his own bowl set on the coffee table. My heart flipped to see the familiar and comforting face of my original husband, the sweet and underrated one who started up this whole Manse thing in the first place. He became the gold standard, the kilo weight by which all Manse-dwelling men would be measured into eternity. Kind, patient, comedic, and loyal. Always ready for duty. "Wait till Caity comes down first,” Stevezie added. “I'm sure she'll want video footage of baby's first Hanukkah."

Stephen, in a rare moment of humility, actually deferred. "I suppose you're right," he said with a shrug as he blew out the candles and carried Jr. back over to the sofa. "But don't you think you should pause this for Caity?"

"Nah, she's seen it five billion times," Stevezie said, knowing me all too well. "She'll be proud enough of us for starting to watch it on our own that she'd be thrilled even if she walked in for the last five seconds."

Indeed, I was, and after I sat down with my husbands for a long winter's epic movie, I couldn't have felt more warm inside...

“You had a child,” Tilda points out as I return to my current body and time. “With Stephen.”

I continue to stare at the now empty sofa and living room lit by the Christmas tree. “I had children with all my husbands,” I say dryly, as if reading from a Wikipedia page.

Tilda’s radiance begins to darken, as does her voice, like an ineffably more ethereal Galadriel. “That was a different time.”

I nod, finally meeting her questioning gaze. “A different me.”

“Would you... _honor_... your new husband in the same way?”

I wince, as if I’ve just stepped on a Lego in the dark. “Kenny needs nothing. He is in a continuous honorificabilitudinitatibus.”

She nods now, winking at me. “What is it they say... men are soup?”

“And women are the bowl. Mostly because nobody wants to eat soup off a table. But there are ladles and spoons and cups as well, so we don’t have to contain them if we don’t want to.” I yawn and stretch my arms over my head. “Will there be a ghost of Hanukkah present and future as well?”

Tilda takes my elbow in hers and starts leading me back to bed. “Only if you’re in the mood for a two AM wake up call from a very tired and grumpy Jon.”

“Awe, poor pupik. Better let him have his full nap tonight.”


End file.
